What with all the scandals about the way large financial institutions handled questionable home loans and other costly transactions, you wonder why anyone would grant an ounce of credibility to Wall Street.

To a small degree, I speak from a bad personal experience, which may be apropos of nothing in the scheme of things, though I’m sure some of you might have some really significant war stories to offer.

Some years back, the Steinberg family wanted to invest in a college education fund for our one and only son, Grayson. As a tech journalist, I played no part in any of these discussoins or in the actual transactions, since I wanted to keep my reputation for objectivity intact. But I did listen in without comment as a stock broker recommended a collection of tech companies that she assured us were poised for tremendous growth.

In retrospect, we didn’t realize that the market was on the verge of the dot-com crash, and all those stocks and lots of others would soon come crashing down with great indignity, as did the small amount we invested. Of course, the stock broker got her commission whether we won or lost, so it didn’t matter to her. She was only too happy to recommend whatever companies gave her the largest spiffs, and I find it difficult to believe she didn’t know what was going on, though anything’s possible.

So where does Apple Inc. enter the picture? Well, Apple had lots of good news to offer with its quarterly financials, which were posed Tuesday afternoon, after the stock market closed.

Since numbers are king here, let me lay a few on you. For its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter, Apple Inc. reported revenues of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share. Gross margin was 34.7%, higher than they predicted in their guidance for the last quarter.

For the same quarter last year, the figures were reported as $6.22 billion in revenues, with earnings of $904 million, or $1.01 per undiluted share. Gross margins stood at 33.6%.

So where was the major product transition mentioned during the previous quarter, which would seriously impact Apple’s profits? Well, if it happened at all, it probably involved the design and production ramp of the new Apple aluminum unibody note-books introduced last week, and that may, in part, already be dragging down Apple’s typically conservative guidance for the current quarter.

However, the figures do show that everything is still coming up roses for Apple. A record of 2.6 million Macs were sold, which amounts to a 21 percent unit growth and a 17 percent revenue growth compared to last year’s comparable quarter. Despite predictions that the iPod sales had flattened, more than 11 million were sold, representing a growth rate of 8% over the year-ago quarter.

But perhaps the star of the show is the iPhone. Even though the 3G model only went on sale in the middle of the last quarter, nearly 6.1 million were sold through the end of the quarter. This takes Apple comfortably past its 2008 prediction of 10 million units, as the App Store hits the 200 million download mark. Even more fascinating is the fact that the iPhone beat BlackBerry, with RIM reporting sales of 5.4 million units.

This is incredible news for a product that only went on the market in June of 2007, as compared to a line of smartphones that’s been available for nearly eight years. And don’t get me started about the Google Android mobile phone operating system.

If you want to check more deeply into Apple’s raw numbers, you’ll want to consult their press release on the subject. One of the most significant pieces of information is the quote from Steve Jobs: “We don’t yet know how this economic downturn will affect Apple. But we’re armed with the strongest product line in our history, the most talented employees and the best customers in our industry. And $25 billion of cash safely in the bank with zero debt.”

Certainly the ongoing economic woes here in the states and throughout much of the world threaten to hurt Apple this quarter, at least to some extent. On the other hand, COO Tim Cook said, in the earnings call with analysts, that Mac demand remains high, that they have significant backlogs on new products and they’re trying to fill the orders as soon as they can.

Despite published reports about the possible end of the line for the Mac mini, nobody asked the question about its future during the conference call, and Apple’s executives, which included a rare appearance by Steve Jobs, didn’t volunteer anything new about it. Maybe no one cares.

As to future products, for now it appears the Apple TV remains a hobby and Jobs expects that it will remain a hobby through 2009, in part because of economic conditions.

In response to questions about tablets and touchscreen-based Macs, Apple took its usual stand, that it won’t talk about future products. But I suppose the question had to be asked nonetheless.

And, no, Steve Jobs didn’t volunteer his blood pressure reading, body temperature or any other medical information during the session.

Back in the early days, your expandable Mac came with technologies that other personal computers didn’t always contain, such as NuBus for peripheral cards for graphics and other tasks and SCSI for such devices as external hard drives and scanners. There were also the proprietary ADB ports for input devices.

But with the introduction of the iMac in 1998, huge changes were heralded. The iMac depended on USB, a standard that had actually been introduced in the PC but had gone virtually nowhere. Suddenly, you had to go out and hunt for conversion interfaces for your older mouse and keyboard, if you didn’t want to use the ones Apple provided. There was, of course, the requisite Ethernet for networking.

Now, an all-in-one computer with minimal expansion possibilities didn’t need NuBus, although you had to wonder about the lack of SCSI. Then again, when you considered all the problems you might encounter when you’d daisy chain several SCSI peripherals to your Mac, maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

With the huge success of the iMac came an explosion of USB devices, and, once the 2.0 standard was finalized, an external hard drive could actually give FireWire a run for its money when it came to performance. FireWire, in fact, didn’t debut on the iMac until the DV model arrived, although it did appear in the famous Blue and White G3, which had a form factor that would, with minor changes and color alterations, remain for high-end Macs for several years, until the G5 arrived. And, by the way, it didn’t have SCSI either.

At first, there was a proliferation of SCSI adapters so you could continue to use your legacy devices. But you only see SCSI in high-end applications these days, and even then not so often.

In any case, you had to assume that FireWire was in for the long haul, although not a lot of PCs adopted it. After all, it was not just an industry standard, but one that Apple invented. What’s more, it was widely employed on camcorders and audio and video breakout boxes. So you had to think it was downright essential.

What happened next? Well, the iPod went all USB. Since the majority of iPod sales are actually to PC users, who usually don’t have FireWire, this was an advantage. More to the point, USB is a tad cheaper, and not supporting two transfer technologies means Apple can shave costs even further on the iPod and remain competitive.

When Apple went to Intel processors for all Macs in 2006, the first iteration of the MacBook Pro lacked a FireWire 800 port. All it had was regular FireWire, and you can bet the video editors and other content creators who depended on Apple note-books for onsite production complained loudly. The faster FireWire port returned in subsequent models.

But when the first rumors that the latest MacBook refresh would contain a new case design, likely aluminum, but might lack FireWire, you had to wonder what Apple was thinking about.

Now we have the reality, and the best explanation you get so far comes from one of those famous one-line pithy comments from Steve Jobs himself, that camcorders have included USB 2.0 for several years. As far and he and Apple are concerned, FireWire is no longer needed for a consumer-grade note-book computer. Besides, that omission shaves precious production dollars from the cost of building a MacBook. When you add in the price of a glass-based touchpad with integrated button, an LED backlit display and more powerful integrated graphics, not to mention the unibody aluminum enclosure, you have to assume that Apple’s profit margins will still decline; that is, until production ramps to full capacity.

As far as the MacBook Pro is concerned, there is but one FireWire 800 port, but you can get FireWire 400 adapters, so perhaps you can live with that particular omission.

So is the handwriting on the wall now? Despite all of Apple’s hard work lo these many years, does this mean that FireWire will soon join ADB as another dead technology?

Probably not, at least for a while. Apple realizes that professionals use MacBook Pros and they will not buy the new model if they can’t have FireWire. But it’s certain that continued use of FireWire products will dictate where Apple goes next. If the next USB standard, USB 3.0, is, as promised, up to 10 times faster, it’s quite possible the need for FireWire, which will also become speedier in the next revision, will be further reduced.

One thing is sure: Apple seems to know where the market is heading, and, if they see traction, they will be at the forefront. But if the new technology is still in flux, or its future success is not yet certain, Apple may pass it by until things settle down. An example is Blu-ray, although I rather like high definition DVDs, even if the technology will, in the end, probably be replaced by movie downloads.

The phrase “don’t bother me with facts” is quite apt when it comes to marketing. Those who are most adept at the profession know just how to deliver a mixture of facts and illusion to entice you to buy their products or services.

Certainly, I think few of you would disagree that Windows became the best selling operating system on the planet not because it was better than the competition, but because of Microsoft’s savvy marketing, predatory practices, and a whole lot of smoke and mirrors.

Certainly over-promising and under-delivering plays a big part, not to mention double-crossing business partners when deemed appropriate. A good example is OS/2, an advanced multitasking operating system they were developing with IBM. While all this was going on, Microsoft was also working full bore on Windows NT as is industrial-strength OS.

These days, very few people remember OS/2, which become just another failed personal computer operating system. For a while, I bet many of you even felt the Mac would end up in the dustbin of history too, and certainly Apple at one time was trying real hard to make itself irrelevant.

No wonder the merest suggestion of a sneeze from Steve Jobs is sufficient to make Apple’s stock plummet. He did, after all, save the company and today, approximately one third of the dollars spent on personal computers in the U.S. retail market, is earmarked for new Macs. How things have changed.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.

We know that you will have to travel far and wide to find an Apple TV in someone’s home — assuming you don’t have one of course. We also know that Steve Jobs officially regards the product as a hobby, something they are working on, testing, enhancing, hoping that it’ll take off some day.

Now as it stands, Apple TV appears to be a pretty neat gadget. Looking for all the world like half a Mac mini, roughly speaking, in terms of height, its purpose is to funnel media from your Mac or PC to your flat panel TV. For that purpose, the newest software updates and other refinements appear to have done the job. Certainly the lower price of admission can’t hurt.

However, where does Apple go from here to improve Apple TV, or is it ultimately a dead end? Now, unless they give us some solid sales figures during their next meeting with financial analysts — and that’s doubtful unless it’s really successful — we’re apt to be left guessing, and with Apple, that’s always plenty of fun.

So what do I mean by modular? Well, basically, the ability to build your own custom Apple TV by the sum of the parts. This would require some sort of docking feature or large case to contain all the components, or maybe a new case design.

Here’s how it will play out: If you want to record TV shows, in the fashion of those ubiquitous DVRs that come from your cable or satellite provider, you would be able to add that capability, perhaps with a module containing software licensed from TiVO. Certainly TiVO’s legal victories against Dish Network for patent infringement would give Apple pause about attempting to develop their own technology when a perfectly good alternative is already available.

Don’t think this is anything unusual. Right now, both Comcast and Cox are busy rolling out TiVO software upgrades for their existing set top boxes. That, no doubt, will protect them from possible patent-related issues too, not to mention the superior user interface that is the hallmark of TiVO’s technology.

Another possible addition to the Apple TV would be CableCARD 2, a two-way standard that lets you receive signals from your cable provider (but not satellite, alas), and also use their VOD (Video On Demand feature). The original CableCARD technology only worked in one direction, from the cable service to you. That, of course, is a trivial endeavor, as the card is a small credit card type component that slides into a tiny slot.

The other part of the equation would be a Blu-ray DVD player. Now, on the basis of his brief comments on the matter during this week’s Mac note-book refresh, Steve Jobs talked of difficult license issues. But certainly it’s also a matter of price. The cheapest Blu-ray players are priced in the same range as the Apple TV, so this would double the price with no real indication that the victorious high definition DVD standard is poised for a major takeoff.

Forgetting the price, that may also be the reason why you’re not seeing Blu-ray in new Macs either, although the drives are readily available from third parties. Apple isn’t going to jump into the fray until they see a real marketing benefit. But if Blu-ray ends up as just another failed format, supplanted by downloadable high definition content, there’s no reason for Apple to spend development dollars on it.

That, of course, has yet to be determined, though certainly the holiday sales results will give the industry a chance to see if Blu-ray has legs.

Adding all these together, of course, means you’ll get a fully-equipped digital media device capable of handling pretty much all the content you’d want. Making it mix and match means you aren’t stuck with the whole shebang, but could buy just the separates that meet your needs. In the end, though, a souped up Apple TV might be regarded as the counterpart to the home theater receiver, where all the electronics are installed in one box, with no option for removal or replacement.

Another possibility would be for Apple to license Apple TV technology to the TV makers.

Now this would make no sense when it comes to personal computers, since Mac hardware sales would be gutted. I realize some tech pundits keep talking of operating system licensing, but we all saw what happened the last time Apple tried that in the last decade. Unless Psystar, that upstart company selling generic PCs equipped with Mac OS X, somehow emerges victorious in its legal action with Apple, this simply won’t change. What’s more, the chances for such a legal victory are evidently quite slim.

On the other hand, Apple TV may prove to be a different cup of tea. You see, it hasn’t been a great sales success, at least so far. Flat panel TVs today are mostly commodity products using parts sourced from the same handful of vendors. While the product reviews will demonstrate differences, they are generally quite minor except to hard-core videophiles, and may, in part, be due to sample-to-sample variations.

Apple would gain no advantage entering that business, where even existing companies are scaling back or merging their efforts. But offering Apple TV technology would give HDTV makers an opportunity to push higher-end products and gain an advantage in a hotly competitive environment.

In the end, of course, I have no idea what Apple should do. Regardless of my feelings, the marketplace will ultimately tell them in what direction Apple TV should go.